At jaw-dropping speed
The record holder breaks his own record:
OYSTAR IWK increases production from
510 to 750 toothpaste tubes a minute with the fastest tube line in the world. The
pneumatic drives of the machine are controlled by valve terminals CPX/MPA from
Festo. The safety soft-start/quick exhaust valve MS6-SV protects man and machine.
Filling and packing toothpaste tubes
C
leaning your teeth is one of the
basics of daily personal hygiene
and is one of the product
segments in the cosmetic
market that is growing all over the world.
Modern machines for filling toothpaste
tubes produce a large number of dental
care products. Near Karlsruhe in south-
west Germany OYSTAR IWK has now
developed the ultimate in filling
machines. The 8 part TFS 80-8 fills and
closes 750 28 mm diameter tubes a
minute with a pulse frequency of 94.
This corresponds to 45,000 tubes an
hour. The next cartoning machine, the
SC 3-800, packs the 750 tubes into
decorative boxes.
50% more output
The TFS 80-8 has a similar footprint to
the previous model, the TFS 80-6. The
major difference is in the increased
output of nearly 50%. The new machine
reduces overfilling of the tubes by
precisely checking its weight. All in all,
this may mean a saving of 83,000 kg of
toothpaste in a year. The machine has
two synchronised robots. State-of-the-art
control electronics work together with
safety soft-start/quick exhaust valve
MS6-SV from Festo. Connected upstream
to a traditional 5/3-way directional
control valve, it easily meets the new
Machinery Directive and guarantees
correct exhausting in emergency or non-
emergency situations. The dual circuit
pneumatic design of the TFS 80-8 sees
to it that tubes are fed in accurately.
The robot hand and the box feed operate
independently of each other. The valve
terminal MPA controls all the pneumatic
drives of the machine while the input
modules of the CPX process all the
sensor signals. Both the valve terminal
CPX/MPA as well as the MS-6 series
have been defined as the standard by
the OYSTAR Group for a very long time.
Correctly positioned and filled
In the first step of the process that leads
to a perfect tube of toothpaste, a robot
feeds the empty tubes, which are open
at the bottom, to the tube holder. In the
next step it transports them safely
through the machine. A high resolution
camera checks the edge of the tube